Council missing it's 2030 net zero target

Powys County Council is currently missing its 2030 Net Zero target, a cabinet member has said.

At a meeting of the council’s Cabinet on Tuesday, May 7, cabinet member for climate change and decarbonisation, Cllr Jackie Charlton made the confession during a discussion of the 2023/2024 capital budget forecast as it stood at the end of February.

The capital budget funds the council’s building projects and the cabinet faced questions by Conservative group leader in his role Finance Panel chairman, Cllr Aled Davies on the report.

Cllr Davies said: “Are we on track to hit the 2030 target?”

Liberal Democrat, Cllr Jackie Charlton said: “Being brutally honest at the moment no, we’re not on target to meet that by 2030.

“But that doesn’t mean that we’re taking it off the agenda, we continuously look at this and are putting things in place to see how we’re doing.”

“We’re not very good at measuring what we’re achieving but I hope to see that coming through as we move forward.”

She added that the council would “keep heading towards the target.”

Earlier in the discussion Cllr Charlton had brought attention to a section of the report which addressed capital funding being allocated for “climate change and nature implications.”

As part of the budget around £33million and “at least” £10million of the Housing Revenue Account (HRA) directly contribute to tackling climate change.

Cllr Charlton said: “I’m really grateful that this has been put into the report as sometimes they can be missed and not recognised.

“I really welcome that we are now embedding these things into our services and how we’re delivering them.

“It’s really useful to see how much is being set aside for these purposes.”

When the capital budget was set in February 2023, £93.287million was allocated to it.

Of this figure £23.48million went to the Housing Revenue Account which is spent on the council’s housing stock.

Since then, the budget has been re-profiled and revised down to £79.339million and at the end of February £49.874million had been spent.

Cabinet noted the report and approved the internal budget transfers known as virements.

In the drive to tackle climate change the Welsh Government has put local authorities in the 2030 Net Zero vanguard – everyone else will be expected to be carbon neutral by 2050.

The hope is that the example from councils all across Wales will rub off on everyone else.